next few years of Cdn history will be an interesting social experiment: What happens when a country's politicians, media, & academics explicitly reject the moral basis for their own national existence...while the broad population is increasingly composed of patriotic immigrants? https://twitter.com/TorontoStar/status/1404560541683683335

I tweet a lot about @TorontoStar opinion columns because the authors, & the groupthink they channel, present an esp reliable (if repetitive) formulation of the hectoring, tedious, self-mortifying approach to Canada that's now de rigeur among wealthy (mostly white) urbanites...

not so long ago, the Star raged against the 1%. But now that working class socialism has been discarded in favor of faddish progressivism, the 1% are celebrated daily. You can read the Star for days & never see anything reflecting the views of the vast majority of Canadians....

this is why the CBC is getting rid of FB comments, and even govt twitter accounts are starting to hide replies on Twitter. In their official channels, they can pretend that they represent broad national opinion. When the replies show otherwise, their instinct is to hide them....

...or to insist that everyone who disagrees with their dogmatic & unpopular attitudes are all just fringe bigots (of which there are always some, of course). The question is how long this charade is going to continue? Surely there are ppl at the Star and CBC asking this question

I've no problem with @TorontoStar publishing this stuff till the end of time. It's a free(ish) country, after all. But the CBC is a different story. We pay for it. Even putting money aside, its pretense of actually representing (or even *respecting*) Canada has become a joke...

old school 1990s & 2000s vintage Cdn media had its own insufferable pieties, of course. No one misses the Anne Murray Group of Seven Lumberjack Cartoon Hour CBC/Star. But at least that iteration of toronto wasps exhibited a certain affection for this country. even that's now dead

Im not even sure how cdn media comes out of this purity spiral, because they've created circular rhetorical tricks for explaining away criticism. In the case of this Star tweet, watch for "the replies only show the urgency of the author's point." criticism is reinvented as praise

think I'm exaggerating? check the last, say, 50 tweets from @StarOpinion & ask yourself what overall vision of Canada they present...Basically it's a white supremacist dystopia whose citizens must dedicate themselves to repentance. how many ordinary ppl u know think like this?...

What's especially galling is that the people who write & edit this stuff, some of whom I've worked with personally, are about to have a fantastic summer in Muskoka splendor. They love their privileged Canadian lives, while lecturing mere hoi paloi to feel shitty about themselves

These people aren't dumb. They're smart enough to get paid 6 figures for telling everyone how horrible everything is. they realise they're increasingly mocked and despised. The audience for the stuff they publish is each other... signaling who's in the Muskoka club and who's out

I'm a privileged person and I don't mind paying high taxes to help the disadvantaged. We can do better. But I also love Canada, which provided a free & safe life for my Jewish immigrant ancestors. And I'm tied of being gaslit for these views by smug, self-serving hypocrites

If you're an "old stock" white writer, editor or producer, & u sincerely want to spend more time on all your "learning" and "working on your reconciliation" or whatever, that's great. Quit. Get out of the way. Give your job to a new Canadian who actually likes this country

the good news: if you're a politician, & u want to connect with voters, this is a great opportunity. stop responding to whatever happened 8 minutes ago on Twitter (or 100 years ago in our history). keep the message simple: "This is a wonderful country. Let's make it even better"